ORLAND PARK MAN CHARGED IN
FATAL DUI CRASH

Friday, January 1, 2010 — An Orland Park man will appear in bond court on Saturday after he was criminally charged for causing an accident that killed his girlfriend, according to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.

Nick Sord, 22, is charged with reckless homicide and aggravated DUI. He crashed his car early Thursday morning at 147th Street and Oak Park Avenue in unincorporated Cook County. Tests showed his blood-alcohol level was .236, almost four times the state’s legal limit of .08.

His passenger, Jessica Mejia, 20, of New Lenox, was killed in the crash.
The accident happened at 4:20 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 31. Sord had earlier picked up Mejia from her family’s home and he was driving westbound on 147th Street when his Mercedes SUV hit a light pole then careened into a ditch and partially rolled. Neither occupant was wearing a seatbelt. Sord told sheriff’s investigators he had been out with friends that night, picked up Mejia and they were headed to his home in the 10600 block of Churchill Drive.

Mejia, a student at the University of Illinois Chicago, was pronounced dead at the scene of multiple injuries, while Sord was treated and released from Christ Hospital. He suffered a broken wrist and lacerations.

Sord is being held by sheriff’s police until his bond hearing in Markham.